A Court at Constantinople

By Anthony Earth

Constantinople, 1859.

It is dangerous for lawyers and lovers when civilisations clash.

 

Under coercion, James Bingham, a struggling English barrister, joins Her Britannic Majesty's Supreme Consular Court at Constantinople. Osman Mehmed, a brilliant Turkish law student, loathes the British court, but the Ottoman government orders him to work with it on legal reform. Angry about injustices that women suffer, Rosamund Colborne initiates a relationship with James to escape a grim future dictated by her ruthless father.

 

The court's cases and the courtship's twists intertwine the fates of Mehmed, James, and Rosamund and force each to question what love and justice mean. With the Ottoman and British empires increasingly at odds, power, prejudice, and passions endanger the court's mission, the heart's desires, and the relationship between the European and Islamic civilisations.

 

At this precarious moment, a brutal crime threatens to destroy what law and affection have created. The trial reveals shocking secrets, and its violent end rouses courage by Rosamund, James, and Mehmed to see justice done and love prevail.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eorthe Books, LLC
• Release date: Mar 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215796320

Anthony Earth

Anthony Earth is an international lawyer and foreign policy expert who has advised governments, international organisations, and companies all over the world. He has written extensively on legal and political issues and has recently delved into outer space law and policy.   Anthony is a first-generation American, born to British parents in the Texas panhandle and raised on the plains of Kansas. He studied political science and English literature at the University of Kansas, earned graduate degrees in international relations and law from the University of Oxford, and received his J.D. from Harvard Law School.

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Part I

Preliminary Examination

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Preliminary Examination.

305. Where the accused comes before the Court on summons or warrant, or otherwise, the Court before committing him to prison for trial, or admitting him to bail, shall, in his presence, take depositions on oath (Form 39.) of those who know the facts and circumstances of the case, and shall put the same in writing. — Rules of Her Britannic Majesty’s Supreme Consular Court and other Consular Courts in the Dominions of the Sublime Ottoman Porte, 1860.

Chapter 1

A Proposition

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Bingham, a gravelly voice emerged from behind the red velvet curtain.

James Bingham twisted in surprise toward the curtain at his back, rendering his wig askew. He hastily adjusted it to restore lawyerly decorum.

Bingham, the voice rasped with guttural urgency.

What? James leaned closer to the curtain and smelled alcohol.

Bingham, you’re up against Shepherd’s Pie, the rum-rancid breath exhaled.

For some reason, judges called Samuel Rye, his foil in the case, Shepherd’s Pie. James did not know whether he had a nickname.

Gravel-voice continued, When Shepherd’s Pie begins again, say this.

A wrinkly hand splotched with liver spots thrust a scrap of foolscap between the curtain panels. Someone belched behind the velvet, provoking school-boy snickering.

James took and read the scribbled note. It addressed the case that he and Rye were arguing, but it contained legal terms, Latin words, and assertions of law foreign to him. This experience was not unusual; he was still relatively new to the Bar. However, he would usually define unfamiliar words, decipher unknown concepts, and dissect unusual claims by candlelight in chambers before uttering them in court. And the first session had already gone badly. The judge had hammered him and Rye with questions, exposing that neither barrister was up to snuff. James knew that his lawyering was suffering. Because of Emma.

May I ask who you are? James was becoming unsettled.

Boy, came the indignant response. Read it and watch that bugger get ripped.

The voice trailed off, taking the reek of rum with it.

James was not fond of Shepherd’s Pie either. But reading a note he did not understand before an already peeved judge on the orders of a tipsy voice behind a curtain hardly seemed worthy of his responsibilities as a lawyer. James tried to treat courts as cathedrals and law as scripture. He bent his knee to the juridical hierarchy, liturgy, clergy, and canon that brought society order and his life stability. But too often judges and lawyers—mostly of privileged birth—behaved as if courts were playthings.

As James fretted about the note, Cranford Pennington, the senior barrister in his chambers, walked up. Looking imperious as always, Pennington straightened to his full, intimidating height as if preparing to pontificate. Instead, he saw the paper in James’s hand, plucked it, skimmed it, curled a wicked prefect’s smile, and, in that Pennington baritone, said, Read it, as instructed.

This command made a confusing situation more disconcerting. It was gospel among barristers in London not to cross Cranford Pennington, who combined an impeccable lineage with one of the sharpest legal minds in the realm. He was in no position to defy Pennington, even over an incomprehensible note written by inebriated jurists. James was not finding enough clients and cases on his own. He survived on table scraps that other barristers in chambers were too busy to handle or considered too boring to bother with. Whispers and rumours about him served as warnings about his prospects in chambers commanded by Cranford Pennington.

As Samuel Rye resumed his argument, James begged the judge’s permission to intervene. His Honour’s eyes twinkled, and the judge granted him leave to speak. James read the note, pausing where the rhythm of the rhetoric invited some reason in the words.

When James finished, the judge said, Mr. Rye, this seems fatal to your plea. What is your response?

Samuel Rye swivelled a panicked gaze between the judge and James. He had no more idea than James what the note meant. Rye’s bewilderment confirmed to James that he was a pawn in a prank to burn some Shepherd’s Pie.

The session did not go well for Rye, who dug himself deeper into trouble the more he pretended to know what he was saying. Despite the humiliation, the judge did not dismiss the plea. He eventually halted the proceedings and scheduled more arguments for Tuesday next, with the admonition that Rye be better prepared. The judge nodded his ancient, wigged head at James, then flashed a wink. Rye hissed, Boot-licking bastard, as he hurried past James in leaving.

Upon exiting the courtroom, James heard the Pennington baritone again, Bingham, with me. Pennington indicated the direction with his walking stick.

Burdened by carrying a stack of beribboned briefs, James trailed behind Pennington’s lanky strides. He entered the chambers of Judge Oliver Norton shortly after Pennington. The judge was conversing with a man James did not recognise. James had not appeared before Judge Norton, who had a reputation for being ferocious in the courtroom and generous at the public house.

Bingham, sit, Pennington pointed at a worn, upholstered chair.

Judge Norton manoeuvred to face James, leaned his abundant backside on his desk, lowered his ample double chin onto his chest, and grimaced.

James Bingham.

Yes, Your Honour, replied James.

Your parents? enquired the judge.

Deceased. James thought the question very odd.

Your wife, she is gone, Norton asserted without feeling.

No, James tried not to betray emotion. She is ... she was my fiancée, not my wife.

Even so, Norton continued, your woman is dead.

Four words of scouring clarity. James looked at the floor.

It had rained during Emma’s sparsely attended funeral and when he had trudged back to the churchyard a week later. He had courted her, but on returning to the grave, he struggled to understand what had passed between them. He had acquaintances for whom courtship and marriage were transformational because love germinated, status elevated, or wealth flowed. Staring at the wet headstone again, James sensed his relationship with Emma had been more transactional.

Shortly before their engagement, he had been grooming his horse, Bones, after riding to Emma’s village one glorious fall morning. He talked softly to the horse as he brushed its blackness toward an obsidian sheen. When finished, he fed it a small, tart apple and touched his forehead to its forelock.

He did not know she had been watching until she spoke, You treat your property well.

She walked away without looking back, her auburn hair swaying across her shoulders. What she meant, or what she was feeling at other peculiar moments in their courtship, he had never asked.

He missed her soft laugh. It had, perhaps, been a promise of possible happiness.

Bingham, Judge Norton’s voice forced James to lift his eyes. We have a proposition.

A proposition and a duty, added Pennington.

A duty arising from empire, said the man James did not know.

And an empire in need of law and justice, Norton layered on.

Pennington sensed that the barrage disoriented James. Failures to persuade other lawyers to accept the proposition and the duty had not produced a more effective way to present the matter.

James, Pennington unusually deployed Bingham’s Christian name. The Foreign Office has approached Judge Norton and heads of chambers to find a young lawyer to become a law clerk in Her Majesty’s Service. I don’t believe you know William Willett, of the Foreign Office.

Willett nodded at James and explained, Edmund Hornby, chief judge of the British Supreme Consular Court at Constantinople, needs a junior law clerk. Under the Foreign Jurisdiction Act, this court has authority within Ottoman dominions. Judge Hornby requires more help in his efforts to reform how Her Majesty’s Government handles legal issues in those lands.

James now realised that Judge Norton’s questions had established that he had no family to keep him in London. But a British court in the Ottoman empire? His irregular perusal of The Times produced some awareness of Britain’s foreign endeavours, but he knew little, if anything, about law beyond the sceptred isle. More intellectually restless young lawyers took up international law. He struggled sufficiently with English law applied in England.

I’m a barrister not a clerk. James tried a positive way to say he was not qualified.

Pennington sensed that James had never heard of the judge, the court, the act, or maybe even Constantinople. The boy was not the cleverest junior barrister in chambers, but like a draught horse, he pulled and plodded with tolerable results. For Pennington, such commonplace competence was fungible, when the price was right.

James, Pennington interjected. The post of law clerk in Her Majesty’s Service is different than being a clerk in chambers—and certainly more adventurous.

This explanation, even leavened with enticement, did not answer James’s questions. Despite the shame he felt about his ignorance, he spoke up, Why do we have a court at Constantinople?

Willett responded, We have a treaty with the Sublime Porte.

With the what? James remained lost.

With the Ottoman government, Pennington answered, which diplomats often refer to as the ‘Sublime Porte’ after the fancy gate that gives access to Ottoman government offices.

James still did not understand. The Foreign Jurisdiction Act is a treaty with the Ottoman empire that created a court at Constantinople?

No. Parliament passed the act in the 1840s to guide Her Majesty’s Government in the exercise of the extraterritorial jurisdiction that our treaty with the Ottoman government grants, Judge Norton used his tutorial voice. Her Majesty established the court a year and some months ago.

Agitated, Willett stood up. Finding a clerk for Hornby had already taken too long. He wanted these ignorant questions to end, and the matter concluded. As a barrister, you have what this post requires—an understanding of the law and the ability to apply it.

Pennington noted the irritation in Willett’s voice and posture. Pennington needed the Foreign Office’s help with the commercial ventures a growing number of his clients had—or desired to have—in the Ottoman empire. Obtaining that help was more important than Bingham’s place in chambers. He deployed his deepest voice to send a clear message, Bingham, take this post. It would be best for you.

James went cold with the threat. But he grasped that calling Pennington’s bluff courted professional ruin, and that capitulating meant professional exile.

To indicate that more significant business awaited, Pennington retrieved his pocket watch, pretended to gauge the time, and deposited it back into his waistcoat. Then he ordered more than asked, Could you have an answer by the morning?

James saw no way out. Pennington held the power. Read it, as instructed. Pennington had exploited his misfortunes. Your woman is dead. Pennington had the leverage. Take this post. He did not need until morning to choose when he had no choice.

Tomorrow, I would like to be bound for Constantinople. James attempted to appear decisive in defeat.

That’s done, Pennington said more to himself than anyone else. The Foreign Office will communicate with you through chambers. William, may we speak about other matters?

Willett made it clear that James would not be departing tomorrow, but he promised that the Foreign Office would brief him and arrange passage thereafter.

The departure of Pennington and Willett left James with Judge Norton, who stared blankly at James before breaking the uncomfortable silence. Well, that turned unpleasant. It would have been better for Queen and country had you accepted the proposition that empires need justice. As it is, you will perhaps depart with a bad taste in your mouth.

Perhaps? James asked more with sadness than sarcasm.

The judge held up an admonishing hand. In the East, selfish pathos will not serve you well. Look at me, boy; don’t stare at the floor again. You will see injustices done by Christians and Mussulmen. You will see men with power by blood or capital behave as if the law is a trifle. How you respond will be a measure not just of yourself, as a man, but of our civilisation.

Making his way home that evening, James shivered with Bones in the bitter, late December cold. He could not fathom what had just happened to him. Emma’s death took a wife from him, but as people assured him, he would find another woman to wed. Her passing altered nothing else in his life. Pennington had threatened his place in chambers and his career in England—things he had fought poverty and prejudice to have. He had no idea what burdens parliamentary acts, treaties, courts, and judges would pile on him in a faraway land. He did not know why a British court had to provide the Ottoman empire with justice. His export seemed expedient for the Foreign Office and Cranford Pennington, whatever the status of law in British foreign affairs. The appeal to our civilisation made no more sense than the note he had read against Shepherd’s Pie. How could he be disposable as a lawyer in England but duty-bound to serve justice in empire?

Chapter 2

Ottoman Voices

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Mehmed, said the mufti, we don’t raise our voices against each other here.

This student impressed and worried Kazim Hasan. Ideas that experts in and judges of Islamic law—muftis and kadis—spent years learning came naturally to the young man. The boy grasped languages quickly and argued at every opportunity with Europeans in English and French. He annoyed Ottoman officials in coffee-house conversations because they stumbled with his arguments and resented his attitude. He resisted advice to be patient and humble. Osman Mehmed was thunder without yet the lightning.

Teacher, when will we raise our voice? asked Mehmed.

Hasan waited for Mehmed to continue, as he invariably did. Instead, the young man left the question hanging. It was a good question, made more so by the silence that followed.

Do we have a voice to raise? Hasan asked Mehmed, who did not anticipate the query, but whose dark eyes flashed the wildness that concerned Hasan.

Mehmed’s hesitation created an opportunity. The mufti looked at a rotund student near the back of the room. Mustafa, what voices do we raise against which wrongs?

Mustafa tilted his fleshy head to look thoughtful. I think Mehmed meant—

I can speak for myself, interrupted Mehmed, causing the mufti’s eyebrow to arch, a gesture the students understood as disapproval.

Mustafa, said Hasan, tell me what you think.

Mehmed is right. When do we speak out against the Europeans? What the Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him, gave to the people is being desecrated.

Under whose power do we ponder Mehmed’s and Mustafa’s questions? Hasan’s hands indicated that any student could answer, but the young men seemed confused.

Mustafa? The mufti attempted to keep Mehmed quiet a moment longer.

The Sultan, Mustafa replied as perspiration beaded on his forehead. But when the mufti did not respond, he tried with even less confidence, The Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him.

Mehmed, do you agree? enquired the mufti.

Mehmed glared at Hasan. No. We are under the power of the English and the French. They stopped the Russians from humiliating us.

Hasan did not agree with Mehmed’s summary of the Crimean war. It devalued the bravery and sacrifices of Ottomans during the conflict. But he sensed a teaching rather than a preaching moment.

He began to pace before his students. And yet, we want to raise our voices against the English and the French, who defended you against Russia?

It still tormented Mehmed. The Russians had crossed the river, but he did not stand and fight. He was not a man when that crisis came, but other boys his age—and younger—had met violence with violence. He was ashamed that, in the decisive moment, he did not spill or shed blood for his people. With his father, he had fled from the danger.

The English and the French are not our protectors, interrupted Ali, another student. They make us suffer the humiliation of obligation.

A muscular, physically imposing young man, Ali was Mehmed’s rival in the class. He had a hot temper like Mehmed but not the same intelligence. Ali talked tough, but as far as Hasan knew, he did not act on his belligerent rhetoric. Hasan had recruited both for the new school. He knew Ali from his mosque, the son of a military officer who had served valiantly under the Ottoman general, Omar Pasha, during the war. Hasan first encountered the sinewy Mehmed at a coffee house arguing with customers rather than cleaning tables, floors, and dishes as he was paid to do. Ali tried to bully Mehmed, calling him coffee-house boy. But Mehmed was clever—and he knew it—which infuriated Ali.

Why did we need Britain and France? The mufti stopped before Ali, who sullenly scratched his thickening beard. Why are we obligated? Why are we humiliated?

The questions produced only silence.

Hasan began pacing again. Let me tell you a story. In conducting imperial governance, two officials travel to different provinces. Each one stops at a village for the night. A family is chosen to feed and house each official. After food and drink, each one is escorted to a bedroom. Each hears a knock on the door, and when he opens it, a daughter of the host stands on threshold. The first official points to the bed and forces himself upon the girl. He leaves in the morning—not saying a word to his host about the girl—and looks forward to the next village. The second official in the other village looks with puzzlement at the girl. He thinks she might have brought water, but her hands are empty. Unsure what she wants, he retrieves some coins, puts them in her hand, smiles, and closes the door. He leaves the next morning—not saying a word to his host about the girl—and looks forward to the next village.

Hasan stopped pacing and perceived discomfort in his students. Against which official should we raise our voice?

Mehmed responded, Your stories concern individual choices, not decisions that empires make. Good and evil men are everywhere. Your tales could happen in any country, at any time.

But, replied the mufti, what country and which time do these stories illuminate?

His students knew the answer. Mehmed certainly did. But no one spoke until Mehmed broke the quiet, One man’s virtue does not make an empire just.

Indeed, agreed the mufti. But when we raise our voice, it should ring with clarity of purpose, not hostility spawned by our weakness and failings in governing our people. There is nothing in European behaviour that explains what has happened to girl after girl, in village after village, year after year at the hands of Ottoman officials. Our treaties with European powers are not responsible for the degradation of daughters or sisters becoming a custom, answered only when fathers or brothers run vengeful knives across guilty throats.

Or mothers, Mehmed muttered.

Mustafa spoke with trepidation, I can believe the first story, but perhaps the second requires fiction to be true.

Hasan laughed at Mustafa’s observation. No, both are true. I was present at the first village, and I heard the second story from the official involved.

You were at the first village? And you did nothing? Mehmed’s emotions flared.

You see this scar? Hasan knew that anyone who looked at him saw it. The students kept a close eye on the scar, which turned blood-red when the mufti was displeased with them. But none had asked the origins of this oft-crimson cut down their teacher’s face.

The Ottoman official slashed my face with his riding crop after I confronted him. But he died before we reached the next village. His horse spooked; he fell off, broke his neck.

"Mashallah," his students quietly said, acknowledging that Allah had willed it.

You’ve heard of the second official, whom people call the Supreme English Judge. I have talked with him at dinners he has hosted for Ottoman leaders.

Mehmed’s eyes flashed wild again. "You eat and talk with this man? Who brings his law here? Where it displaces the law of the holy Koran—our sharia? Where it cannot bring us justice?"

You could learn from this man, the mufti responded.

Only as an enemy. Mehmed’s blood was up.

Hasan’s scar darkened. "Are you prepared to meet the enemy? Our military is not. Our government is not. Our religious leaders are not. No wonder Europeans think the Ottoman empire is sick, feeble, decrepit.

"We have established this school because we need advocates for our laws and our justice. The government responds to this transforming world by importing European laws. Why? Because many believe that sharia is inadequate. Because we cannot compete by looking backwards. Because we only know the past. Because we haven’t developed our laws and lawyers to balance the scales of justice among nations in this time of great change. Because we have no answers for today or tomorrow. That’s why we copy French law. That’s why the English have a court at Constantinople. Our complacency, our confusion, our failing confidence, our lack of purpose—all threaten to make humiliation a permanent obligation."

How can we compete, interjected Burak, a quiet but perceptive student, "by trying to learn everything? When we study sharia, we aren’t learning the legislation adopted by the Sultan. When we study the Sultan’s law, we aren’t learning European law. When we study European law, we aren’t learning sharia. If we only know a little about a lot, we will not be prepared."

The mufti shared Burak’s concern. The new school lacked an identity. It was not an Islamic place of learning, like Al-Azhar in Cairo, where he had trained when the shadow of European power was not as dark and long. The school was to be an Ottoman institution, an Ottoman voice in a rapidly changing world. But what Ottoman meant was fiercely contested. For some, only sharia and Islam could define Ottoman justice. For others, Ottoman law must embody ideas about justice from beyond the caliphate. As he once heard a kadi lament, I do not like this modern world. We have more laws but less justice.

Teacher, interrupted Süleyman, a waifish, bespectacled student. Why is this English judge traveling around giving money to girls?

Mehmed shot Süleyman a look of disdain. Of the students, Süleyman was the least informed about what was happening all around them. He insisted on wearing a traditional turban that was too big for his head, which made him look trapped in a distant time when the people of Islam taught the world fantastic things.

Hasan asked, Who can answer Süleyman’s question? Why is the English judge here?

No one answered. The mufti lowered his head in disappointment. How often had they looked at the treaties with the Europeans? How many times had they discussed why these treaties had been transformed from acts of magnanimity by powerful sultans into marks of ignominy for a disoriented people?

You want me, Mehmed’s surly tone lifted Hasan’s head, to learn from this man?

I want— Hasan paused to contain his frustration. You—all of you—could learn from this man. He is a man of law and is here to end the injustices his government perpetrates.

"Learn from a man ignorant of sharia? Learn from a man who considers us uncivilised?" Mehmed boiled.

Mehmed, the mufti felt the scar on his face grow hot again. We are, in this school, studying how our jurists, judges, and officials apply law and seek justice amidst bewildering change. Do you believe that we are the only people who confront this challenge?

The change this English judge brings is not of our making, Mehmed answered angrily. And it cannot be a source of justice for us.

And how have we fared against the waves of change crashing over us? Do we believe that we can respond only to the change we create? The mufti challenged his students.

Change may come from within or beyond our shores, Mehmed replied in a more measured tone. But foreign ideas should not determine why and how we change. The latest law—the Imperial Criminal Code—reads like it was written in Paris. This English judge applies his law here. We mimic and appease the Europeans, but it’s never enough. They want more laws written in Paris, more English judges here, more European power, more Ottoman surrender. In all this, we lose our dignity and our destiny. How is this just?

You’re all fools, Ali stood and puffed out his chest, looking around the classroom with contempt. "Becoming better lawyers than the infidels won’t matter. We need to shelve the books and shoulder our guns. Talk